Residents in Monroe's Garden District have been concerned about the future of the abandoned Georgia Tucker Elementary School for years, but some are now concerned the building is attracting crime.

"It's disconcerting at 2 in the morning to hear noise going on and look out your window and see people trying to get into the building." Marilyn Denoux said. "It's a danger. Something could happen to people."

Denoux said the Monroe Police Department had found evidence a man might have been living in the building.

"People can walk around and go into the cafeteria that was built on the back of the facility on Roselawn," she said. "They have caught or are in the process of apprehending a vagrant who was living in the facility. The police did apprehend his backpack and bicycle. It had in it his parole violation, so that was not the most warm and fuzzy thing to hear."

Monroe Police Det. Reggie Brown said the department is monitoring the school closely.

"We've had three calls in the past 90 days," he said. "After each incident, we placed it on extra patrol. Anytime that someone calls in in reference to people trespassing, our units ... patrol that every night and they have to log it."

Brown said he wasn't aware of any reports involving any homeless living in the building, but if an officer found someone living there, he would try to relocate the person.

Matt Sanderson, who is a co-owner of the property, said he is aware of the problems and is doing the best he can to prevent crime in the area.

"I go by there every week checking on it," he said. "I haven't seen any evidence of break-ins since the last time we boarded it up. We initially boarded it up when we first found out people were breaking in. They then broke into the basement. So we went and had that all boarded up. It went a while where it was vagrant free or break-in free.

"We had a guy break in again and they actually found some of his information. He'd left a backpack there. They didn't find him in the building but he was someone on probation. Since that time — and that's been about a month and a half — I've seen no evidence of break-ins."

Sanderson said he's given out his phone number to several neighboring residents and they call him when there are problems.

"If it's going to be broken into, I will get a phone call," he said. "I've gotten phone calls from a couple of the neighbors to alert me of anything. As soon as I get those calls, I get over there and take a look at it. We've gone in three times and corrected whatever the issue was where they were getting in."

The building has been in limbo for several years, but Sanderson said he is working to finally begin renovations to turn the old school into an assisted living facility, which will alleviate a lot of the problems.

"We have a meeting this Friday with our financial officers trying to put our package together to move the assisted living project forward," he said. "The only way to properly restore it will be with historic tax credits and that's what is taking a while."

Denoux said she just wants to see the building put to good use so people will stop breaking in.

"You get to a point where you just say, "What the heck. This is ridiculous,'" she said.